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The 1988 VIDEO Floppy Disk Camera: Canon Xap Shot RC-250

6 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this explainer1 month2018–2025 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN shares it as a fun explanation of analog floppy-disk cameras.

LGR looks at the 1988 Canon Xap Shot, a still video camera that records photos to a floppy disk as analog NTSC signal rather than digital data.

“A fun video to learn more about the tech” (HN, 2018)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Explainers

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@einr Sep 2018 Recommends
on HN thread Street View of 1980s New York
Yes, probably -- before digital cameras, there were still video cameras. They used a CCD to record still video images onto magnetic media such as a video floppy disk. So a lot like a digital camera, but fully analog. These were pretty cutting-edge tech in the mid 80's and would have made a lot of sense for a project like this. [link] [link] A fun video to learn more about the tech: [this video]
Fun video explaining analog floppy-disk still cameras

Citations, criticism and jokes

@gambiting Sep 2020 Cites it
on HN thread A floppy-disk Walkman using a Raspberry Pi
Similarly, there have been photo cameras that used floppies for image storage, and I'm not talking about sony's Cybershoot cameras which stored photos as actual files - I'm talking cameras which just stored photos as analog signal directly on the floppy, in NTSC format! [this video]
Example of cameras storing analog NTSC photos on floppies
@qingcharles Dec 2025 Cites it
on HN thread A 'toaster with a lens': The story behind the first handheld digital camera
It's interesting that you differentiate between analog and digital electronic cameras. My first "digital" camera was one of the Canon Ion ones that use floppy discs but actually record the photos in analog, so technically just an "electronic camera", but was marketed as a "Still Video Camera" (!). You had to use a video capture card to get the images into the PC. [link] [this video]
Related to the commenter's analog floppy Canon camera

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